David Dayen
has encountered a comment from Alan Simpson that ought to be bronzed and thrust into the face of every Democrat (including the one in the White House) who invokes the name of Simpson-Bowles in discussions of budgets and deficits:
SIMPSON: I get so damn sick and tired of listening to the little guy, the vulnerable, the veteran — I am a veteran, and the seniors and this and this and this and the meanwhile this country is headed for second-class status while everybody just babbles into the vapor.
Where is the evidence that Alan Simpson has ever in his life listened to “the little guy?” He’s really sick and tired of the PUBLIC listening to those pleas – in other word, he doesn’t like the public thinking for themselves, with appeals from those who look and talk and think like them. He’d much rather the rest of the country worked the way it works in Washington, where the little guy remains silent while the blob of corporate lobbyists and consultants and associated grifters dominate the conversation. The vulnerable never penetrate the minds of the political class, save for maybe two or three weeks around election season. The rest of the time, they’re just 300 million moochers sucking at the public teat.
Simpson really wants to shut down this thing we call democracy, so the enlightened, self-appointed guardians can go about looting the public treasury in peace. In your best interest.
This, by the way, is why Simpson was supposed to be put out to pasture, in favor of younger model Judd Gregg. But Washington has elevated Simpson and his balcony partner Erskine Bowles to such heights, and elevated their B-S plan (that stands for Bowles-Simpson, what else could it stand for) as well, that he couldn’t extricate himself from the spotlight. And these are the results.
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Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2004—Ladies Against Women on their Way to Iraq:
Lynne Cheney, who once presided over the National Endowment for the Humanities and subsequently sought out other duchies in the Culture Wars, isn’t much in the news these days except to kudo her husband on his forensic skills and give an occasional speech.
Behind the scenes, however, the second lady remains active in the halls of rightwingery that do much to set the American agenda. For instance, she sits, emerita, on the board of theIndependent Women’s Forum.
Thanks to bloggers Hannah at Feministing.com and Echidne, we learn that the IWF recently:
…has been awarded a grant to focus on the immediate promotion of women’s full political and economic participation in Iraq. The grant is part of the US Department of State’s $10 million Iraqi Women’s Democracy Initiative. As Iraqi women prepare to compete in Iraq’s January 2005 elections, IWF, in partnership with the American Islamic Congress and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, will provide leadership training, democracy education and coalition building assistance for 150 pro-democracy, Iraqi women leaders and political activists. […]
Feminist Majority President Eleanor Smeal said, “Talk about an inside deal, the IWF represents a small group of right-wing wheeler-dealers inside the Beltway.” The IWF responded with a we’ve got as much right to be there as they do: "Neither the Feminist Majority nor any other women's organization has a monopoly on the principles and practice of democratic values or women's international human rights," said Michelle D. Bernard, senior fellow with the Independent Women's Forum. "This attack by Eleanor Smeal and company is wholly unwarranted."
IWF was the spin-off of Women for Clarence Thomas. Its first executive director was Barbara Ledeen, wife of Michael Ledeen. Among other notables who have served on its board are Rumsfeld hagiographer Midge Dector, who wrote a 1972 book called The New Chastity and Other Arguments Against Women's Liberation, Ted Olson and Larry Kudlow (yes, that Kudlow).
The IWF mission: “to combat the women-as-victim, pro-big-government ideology of radical feminism.”
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Tweet of the Day:
Republicans who hope for bad economic numbers love America like a mom with Munchausen Syndrome by proxy loves her kid.
— @morninggloria via web
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